You see, the reason wealthy people get to evade taxes, while the IRS selectively enforces laws against poor people, is because they're just too gosh-darn underfunded!
If only they just had some more moneys, they would get right to work on on making rich people pay taxes, and creating an egalitarian society that the working class could thrive under! Because there is so much evidence that the US government is invested in doing that.
Your thoughts?
There is some merit to the idea that IRS chasing the very wealthy was less likely because they have had fewer resources than historically was normal.
Without laws forcing the IRS to go after anything but the lowest hanging fruit though, I think we know where most of the enforcement from this latest workforce boost will go.
There is a grain of truth to this, the IRS has been defunded by conservatives over the years but they're missing the forest for the trees if they think this is the only problem
It's like the EPA or FDA, in theory they could do a lot of good and protect people and the environment through regulations but both of these agencies have already been captured by the industries they were supposed to regulate and the IRS is no different, they serve the ruling class and only attack the poor
There's a reason Al Capone was nailed by the IRS back in the day but the same thing never happened to Epstein and won't happen to Trump
The IRS has been defanged but once that happened it changed and it can't change back through reform because if anyone tries, those fangs will be turned on the most vulnerable
A better-fundd IRS will go increasingly after rich people's taxes. But they'll do it even more to the working class.
:doubt:
Who's filling out the 1044 EZ and getting audited?
If you've got investment income or are trying to run a farm or other business where you're trying to keep track of lots of different income streams or to claim expenses to reduce your tax liability then there's something for the IRS to dig thru.
Maybe people who just haven't paid their taxes but the IRS doesn't to have any problem sending bills and notices of fines to people who haven't paid or are late in paying.
I think they'll be going after less formal pay (a way to employers to tax dodge but also still income for the desperate) in a way that hurts the workers. Also the tax hits that are more rare but still working class, like small inheritance or gifts.
More speculatively, I think this will be used to selectively enforce anti-immigrant policies, as the IRS is already tasked with investigating and enforcing that employers have jumped through some hoops to hire only documented workers when something seems amiss. I expect more coordination with ICE, especially during the next administration.
The entire US govt is a rotted tree. It's dead on the inside. It just looks normal outside. That means that it is pointless to keep some appendage of the greater thing alive.
Realistically any irs conversation has to start with them being responsible for individuals tax returns. Fuck all this wild easy tax 24 quick turbo bullshit. Make the irs do an actual service for people, then figure out how much money they need to do it.
If we give them money for any other reason it has to be explicitly weaponized against the wealthy.
This is a great point I hardly ever see anyone make. A lot of the waste in the tax system comes from people either intentionally or naïvely making errors on their returns, and the IRS having to unravel it and hunt them down for correct payment.
If they did it themselves and just gave everyone a number of dollars they had to send in, it would probably save money and reduce man-hours.
Read about how fucked up and old their processing system is. Literally doing things like it's 1970. It should be modernized for the sanity of anyone working there
